My Body Is Cooking a Baby: Part 3

We walked out of the clinic; the sun bright and hot. Ellie attached to Luisa's hip, little arms wrapped around her neck. My sister was talking to me but I could not respond. A flood of emotion was about to wash over me and I was trying to contain it, to keep it all inside, to be able to think clearly. She looked over and instinctively knew I was about to loose it. "Ellen, are you okay?" I shook my head and quiet tears streamed down my face. We reached the car and she got Ellie buckled in her car seat as I sat in the driver's seat, crying. I did not know if I was overreacting, or owning up to my pregnant hormones. Maybe both. What I did know was that there was fluid around my baby's heart, and fluid around the heart was not good. Maybe tomorrow the fluid would be gone, but today, in that moment, fluid around the heart was not good.

After a few minutes I was able to clear my head a little bit and called my husband. As soon as I heard Andy's voice I was overcome by emotion once more. It was not my habit to call him and cry over the phone, so he sensed something was terribly wrong.

"Honey," he asked with a calm but anxious voice, "What is wrong?"

I mumbled through my tears, but was able to communicate the basics: they saw fluid around the heart, we need to go see a specialist, it could be something serious, or nothing at all. Immediately I sensed his relief. His pregnant and tend-to-be-dramatic wife was not delivering devastating news.

It has to be my hormones. Maybe I should be taking some anti-emotional pills. I wonder if they make those.

I sighed, I could see how my delivery was a little bit over the top. I should have waited to call him until I was a decent, level headed woman, once I had been able to think about this clearly. "Sorry honey," I responded, "I am just so worried."

I hung up and shook some of the emotional commotion, I was ready to eat. My baby had fluid around her heart, there was nothing I could do about that, but I could get some food and pass on some good stuff to my baby through my perfectly good Placenta. IHOP sounded delicious.

Once my belly was full, my head clear, and my toddler ready for a nap, we got back on the road and drove 50 miles back home.

Over the next few days it became evident that God was loving us through other people. Our church was praying, and so were our families and their friends. Some of these people I do not even know, but they were faithful, for I was wrapped in peace. They lifted up our baby girl to God asking that He would heal her heart, that the fluid would be gone.